Welcome back, Miker.

For the Icon Builder program after the Glow Mask has been created using the chain code from the Image Tile the next step is to import the RGB Glow Mask into Photoshop then set layer opacity =70 and do Filter / Blur / Blur twice to produce the 32 bit Glow Border. That's the method Ken was using for making icons.

But it's not reasonable to require AROS users to get and install a copy of Photoshop to do the blur effect. Instead that function should be done in the program itself. But the difficulty is trying to guess what code is being used for the Photoshop Blur Effect.

At first I thought it was a simple Box Blur but that wasn't it. Yesterday I discovered that a Gaussian Blur with radius 0.50 creates a nearly perfect ARGB Glow Border! Now I just have implement a Gaussian Blur algorithm and continue testing. ;-)

The end result will be to easier add a realistic Glow Border to an icon image.

It's been a while since I worked on AROS programs. About this time last year I started looking for a new place of employment. Many things have happened since then. But it's good to be back. I have been checking the forum from time to time and I've seen some good projects.

I'm working on Icon Builder again and I've made some progress. A year ago I had a problem with the blur effect. I'll explain in more detail.

wow big job

The Save_Amiga_Icon functions are coming along nicely! For the sub-functions other than Write_OS35data the second most difficult for me was the Write_Image function which writes planar data to file. There are just a few functions left to do till Save_Amiga_Icon is done. I've been working on Save_Amiga_Icon for 6 months.

Why is it so important to save an Amiga Icon? The Classic Icon is the basis for three of the Icon styles supported by AROS. The Amiga Glow Icon is a Classic Icon (Old Icon Format) with OS 3.5 IFF Icon Data attached at the end. The IFF data contains the images that AROS displays. An OS4 icon is a Classic Icon with OS 3.5 Data attached. But unlike a Glow Icon it only has a 'FACE' chunk with no 'IMAG' chunks. It has 2 'ARGB' chunks at the end of the Icon file that are used to display. The AROS Hybrid Icon or ARGB Icon is similar to the OS4 Icon but it has a complete Glow Icon that 2 ARGB chunks are attached to at the end.

Write_Image is now working. Save_Amiga_Icon loads an ILBM file to get the chunky image data which consists of index values. The image data is processed by RemapIconImage which maps the index values to a standard 4-color palette. Write_Image then writes the planar data to file.

In the screenshot on the lower right side there are 2 small Windows displaying icons. I used the VIEW option for modifyicon to display the Old Icon Images & Glow Icon Images to make sure Write_Image was working correctly. At first it wasn't. The first set of images shows distortion for the Old Icon Images, though the Glow Icon Images are shown correctly.

The distortion for the Gadget Images is caused by incorrectly handling the padding bytes at the end of each scanline for the planar data. I tried to go the easy route by writing the entire planar buffer to file in one go. This is the result.

In the second set of images you see that the Gadget Images & Glow Icon Images are shown correctly. I had to revise Write_Image to write each scanline separately with padding bytes.

Let's hope for the best

Definitely Mike, AROS has grown considerably in quality and stability,
especially if you have a PC with supported hardare, as demonstrated in this video!

https://youtu.be/...

Thanks! You also.

Maybe 2025 will be a good year for AROS.

happy new year Mike

Happy New Year!

Just a small update. I'm still working on Icon Press to Save A Classic Icon (Amiga Icon).

I'm still working on revising & testing Icon Press to Save Amiga Icons, as well as a user interface for Icon Split that will be Amiga 68k compatible.

Now that I'm fixing up my testing environments including AROS One x86 & Tiny AROS & my new version of a minimalist AROS Distro. I'm still working on improving it & updating the icons & making new window themes. You have already seen a sample screenshot. Here it is again...

I need some new & updated colored icons so now I also need new icon tools. These will be Icon Mask, Icon List, Icon Tint & Icon Batch. Icon List builds a list of all the icons on the system.

Icon Mask & Icon Batch are related. Icon Mask uses an original icon image, icon image mask & icon base image to make a new icon image. Icon Batch does the same but it makes & builds all the icon images in the list & it assembled icons. Icon Batch can make & assemble 400 images to make 200 new icons in less than one minute!

Now that another project using Datatypes has been completed I can focus again on Icon Press to attempt to save an Amiga Glow Icon from two input ILBM images. It's coming along nicely, but it's a slow iterative process. It takes some time!

OK thanks, I'll create the icons for AROS One in the meantime!

AMIGASYSTEM

The PixieView program has been updated. But I need to add the HAM conversion code to save 24bit images as HAM6 or HAM8. The code is working I just need to add it to the new version.

AMIGASYSTEM

Maybe there is a glitch in the VMWare Graphics display driver. But you do more testing if that helps. I wonder what Icon Editor for OS3 does to the PNG images that makes them correct?

Feel free to include PixieView if you want to. It's a simple and easy to use image viewer using picture Datatypes. Test out PixieView and let me know if there are any issues that I need to correct.

I should probably remove the first two messages when opening a picture file "success" & the picture dimensions. That could be annoying. It was just for testing purposes on my end. Let me make a few changes then I will post a new version of PixieView tomorrow that you can include.

Thanks miker, this is getting more and more interesting!
Even the Pointer saved by your pixieview program shows the white shadow when used with VMware "Native Mode".

I create my Pointers with PhotoFiltre, but I have the same result if I create them in PhotoShop and other PC Paints

And also the Pointer saved with pixieview I can remove the white shadow with Icon Editor on my AfA One (only on OS3), basically IconEditor allows me to save a part of the image see screenshot !

The curiosity remains to find out with which programme they create the Pointers on the AROS Build!

I like your pixieview, I will insert it on AROS One if you like!

Probably VMware's Native mode has some graphical problems, but it helped me to discover the difference between my Pointers and those of the Builder

I have not tested Native mode on VirtualBox !

On Native PC no problem, Azure-No trasparent.png works perfectly, no White shadows, and no user has ever complained as all AROS One Pointers were like that (Now all corrected on AROS One 2.7)

AMIGASYSTEM

Here are the files. I used my PixieView Picture Viewer to open both test images Azure-Not Transparent.png and Azure-Ok Transparent.png then I used from the Picture menu Save Picture which uses picture Datatypes to save as PNG.

For both images this puts them through the Datatypes system and it removes any extra chunks and corrects any errors in the files.

Azure-Not Transparent.png originally had 619 bytes. After saving it with PixieView it had 710 bytes. Azure-Ok Transparent.png had 672 bytes and after saving it still had 672 bytes.

The IHDR data in both files were identical. They are both 32bit PNG images. The Non-transparent image (619 bytes) had an extra pHYs chunk. The images saved from it had only the IHDR, IDAT & IEND chunks. It seems the Transparent image (672 bytes) was previously saved using picture Datatypes or PNG library with the same compression scheme and degree of compression. The before and after files are the same.

I also included PixieView for AROS x86 so you can try it for yourself to open and save problem pointer images. Again, open the pointer file then use the Picture Menu, Save Picture to save a new PNG file. Have fun!

Where did the Azure-Not Transparent.png image come from? Which application saved the file?

AMIGASYSTEM

I watched the video about the non-transparent pointer. It was interesting and informative.

I tested the pointer images you provided. It seems to be a PNG file format issue. I will explain more in a bit. I converted them using Datatypes and re-saved as PNG images.

I will post the files in about an hour.

I enclose a video to see the differences on WMware Native Vs VESA, I also enclose the two Images of the Pointers, one No Transparent and the other Fixed

Send me an archive of a pointer with transparency issues on VMWare and one that you fixed with OS3 Icon Editor. I will find the difference.